(Dr. W.) We measure our world by the limits of our knowledge and experience.
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat everything
like nails. Bigotry, bias, and prejudice are all words that describe
this limited view (hammer) each of us tends to embrace and apply.

A dog does not comprehend poetry, nor does an infant calculus.
The worlds of the dog and of the child are extremely limited in
scope. For the dog it is predominantly genetically determined. Even
if a dog would like to understand poetry, it couldn't and will never
grow into it either. On the other hand, a child's view of the world
can expand continually throughout life. Unfortunately, as we get
into our teenage years and become certain that our knowledge encompasses
just about all that could be known – certainly more than both parents
combined – we become increasingly arrogant, and with this arrogance,
closed minded. Intellectual growth can actually stop by about the
age of 13, with vocabulary serving as an index of this growth and
not increasing significantly for most people after this age.

With that as a preface, let me say that it is easy for us to believe
that the world we were born into is the only real world. Fluorescent
lights, conditioned air, automobiles, pop, French fries, television,
and polyester may seem like the only real and natural world for
humans. Without the perspective of history, there would be no way
of knowing any differently.

But we do have history. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, which
occurred about 200 years ago, we were by and large in an entirely
different setting. We spent the majority of our time outside and
without any of the modern conveniences and technologies we have
come to believe to be as natural and automatic as a tree or the
wind.

Our genes, however, are not equally convinced. They remain encoded
for the natural world. They are, in fact, an inward definition of
the external natural, pre-Industrial, more pristine world.

In this new modern synthetic world we are increasingly alienating
our basic biological make up. We are like fish taken out of water.

The accompanying charts demonstrate the dramatic change occurring
just in the last 100 years.

This is only a
small representation of the dramatic changes our modern world has
produced related just to food. On a broader environmental scale,
human activity rivals the natural processes that have built the
biosphere. About 40% of the earth's photosynthetic capacity (plant
growth) is now appropriated for human use. The biologically available
nitrogen and phosphorus used by humans for fertilizer and chemicals
about equals the amount produced by nature. We apparently can alter
our atmosphere on a global scale (ozone, Chernobyl, greenhouse gases).
Huge numbers of species stand on the curling tip of a wave of extinction
– and the list goes on.

Though it seems presumptuous to suggest that we, here, now in this
generation are unique in all of history, the evidence supports that
we are. We are a pivotal generation that can either turn things
around or continue to fuel a degrading environmental/health spiral
that soon, if unaltered by us, will continue in spite of any efforts
we make later to change things.

Scary? Yes, indeed. But we need to get scared if that's what it
takes to wake up. We are, without a doubt, a very special generation
with the weight of the world's future literally on our shoulders.

Don't despair. You, yes little ole puny you, can do much. Everything
ever done always began with one. Act on the things you know to be
right, healthy, socially responsible, and environmentally sensitive.

The Wysong e-Health Letter is an educational newsletter. Opinions expressed are meant to be
taken for their argumentative/intellectual interest value, and not interpreted
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2003, Wysong Corporation. This newsletter is for
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